Step by Wicked Step Read online

‘That’s right!’ he jeered at Mum. ‘Have it both ways! For years I’m there too much. Then, when it suits you, I’m not there enough!’

  Mum opened the door and stood in silence, waiting for him to leave.

  ‘Right, then,’ he said. ‘I’ll stop round for the rest of my things tomorrow.’

  ‘Just tell me when,’ said Mum. ‘So I can make sure I’ll be safely out.’

  And that’s how we went on for quite a while, with them hardly speaking to one another, and taking turns to come to things at school, and giving me frosty little notes to pass on about things like missing socks and library books. Stella stayed out of it as much as she could. On Wednesdays, when I came for tea with Dad, she used to work late. And on weekends, if I was there, she spent hours reading in the bedroom, and the rest of the time keeping busy in the kitchen. She only sat with us during the meals.

  And those were awful. (I don’t mean the food. That was quite brilliant. Dad doesn’t run a café for nothing, and Stella’s a good cook.) I mean the conversation. Stella would try.

  ‘How’s everything at school?’

  ‘Fine,’ I’d say coldly.

  ‘Who’s your best friend?’

  ‘Shreela,’ I’d say, just as coldly. And then I’d add: ‘But I don’t get to see her so much any more, now that I have to come here.’

  Then Stella would go quiet, and push a forkful of food around her plate.

  ‘How’s Natasha?’ my dad would ask.

  ‘She’s all right,’ I’d tell him. ‘She’s going on holiday soon, with her mother and father.’

  I wouldn’t say it; but still you’d hear it ringing round the room: ‘Lucky Natasha!’

  ‘What about Flora?’

  ‘She’s very well, thank you.’

  Stella would try again.

  ‘I don’t know Flora, do I?’

  And I’d just stare down at my plate with a look on my face that said, plain as day: ‘Why should you? You’re nothing to do with me. You’re not my mother. Why should you know anything at all about my friends?’ If I wanted the butter, I’d ask Dad to pass it, even if Stella was closer. And whenever she asked me a question, I’d try to answer it without even looking at her, as if I just happened to be speaking to the air that just happened to be floating invisibly around me.

  And all the time, I would be thinking of Mum. That was the problem. I couldn’t bear to sit there, having a perfectly normal time with Dad and Stella, while Mum was at home frantically cleaning out the gerbils, or rinsing the glass wall light shades under the taps, or hosing mud off the steps. I’ve never known our house so clean and tidy and organized as the months after Mum and Dad split up. Each time I came home, something else had been painted, or mended, or polished. Mum would look up at me as I walked in. But she waited till the sound of Dad’s car had faded round the corner before she asked:

  ‘Have a nice time?’

  And it was important to be able to say:

  ‘No. Not really. It was boring.’

  I can’t explain why that helped Mum. Or me. But it just did. I felt, if I’d got on with Stella, if I’d just chatted to her while she fixed her silver necklace, or helped her choose bulbs out of the catalogue for her lovely window boxes, or worn the beautiful green pyjamas she bought me as a late Christmas present, then things would somehow have been worse for Mum, even if she wasn’t there to see us or hear us. I felt, when I came home and Mum asked, ‘Have a nice time?’, if I’d said, ‘Yes, I enjoyed it,’ I’d have been doing exactly the same as Dad. I’d have been cheating on her. I’d be as much to blame as him for all the horrid changes I never wanted.

  I couldn’t blame Stella, though. I did at first. I hated her at first. I thought, if Stella hadn’t come along, Dad would have stayed with us. But it was Shreela who put me right on that.

  ‘He could go home whenever he wanted,’ she told me. ‘My dad stormed out once. Then he just came back.’

  ‘I heard him telling Granny that Mum doesn’t want him.’

  Shreela shrugged.

  ‘We had a bust-up once,’ she reminded me. ‘And we’re best friends again.’

  I thought about that for ages. I couldn’t remember what the quarrel was about – something to do with partners for dancing. But after our big fight, I wouldn’t make up with Shreela and she wouldn’t make up with me. She went off with Flora, and I went off with Natasha. I can’t remember how we ended up being good friends again. But I remember all those days of not speaking to one another, and looking away in class, and picking different people on our teams, and acting as if neither of us cared in the slightest.

  But we were seven. Mum is thirty-four. And Dad is thirty-six.

  Thirty-seven on the night of the party meal. The night when, in less time than it takes to blink, I made my big decision. From the moment I arrived, I could tell there was something special happening. For one thing, my dad was astonished to see me.

  ‘I thought you weren’t coming this weekend.’

  ‘Mum had to change it round. Granny mixed up the dates for her appointment at the hospital. We left a message at the café.’

  ‘Oh. Right.’ He looked a bit guilty, as if he hadn’t been near the café all day. And it was true. The two of them had spent the whole morning shopping, and now the kitchen was piled high with groceries, and they were frantically chopping and stirring and mixing and blending. I helped for a while (till I’d had enough titbits to count as lunch). But then I went into the other room to do some of my homework. It was quite obvious that they’d be cooking all the afternoon.

  After an hour or so, Stella came in and started cleaning while I pretended that I hadn’t noticed her. She did a proper job, moving the furniture, and wiping and polishing until the place sparkled. From time to time, she said something in my direction, but I either grunted as if I was very busy with my work, or acted as if I hadn’t heard over the sounds of clattering from the kitchen. Then Stella went to fetch the knives and forks, and sorted them out on the table.

  I watched her carefully from behind my hair. As far as I could make out, she was setting for seven.

  ‘Shall I tell you who’s coming?’ she said to me.

  I shrugged, as if I couldn’t care at all, and wasn’t really listening.

  You could see her struggling to get the names right.

  ‘There’s Barney and Mary. And George. And someone called Linda who sometimes works in the café.’

  Dad’s friends. And just at that moment he came in the room. I didn’t dare keep up the big freeze with Stella, so I said:

  ‘That’s only six, and you’re setting for seven.’

  She stopped and looked at me.

  ‘Don’t forget yourself.’

  ‘But you weren’t expecting me.’

  ‘No,’ she agreed cheerfully. ‘But now you’re here, the more the merrier.’

  I wondered if she’d checked this out with Dad. Left to himself, I knew, he would have packed me off to the bedroom with supper on a tray. So I said stubbornly:

  ‘I think I’d prefer to have mine upstairs, by myself.’

  She stopped shunting forks round the table.

  ‘Would you? Would you really?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said firmly. (And it was true.)

  ‘Tucked up in bed in your nightie?’

  I nodded, feeling a bit bad because I hadn’t realized that she’d noticed I never wore the green pyjamas that she’d given me.

  ‘If that’s all right with Dad,’ I said, as if it was really nothing much to do with her.

  ‘It’s fine with me,’ he said. And you could tell he was relieved. (I suppose you don’t invite your old friends round to supper to meet your new girlfriend, and want your daughter at the end of the table, staring at the two of you whenever you talk about how you met, and how things are going, and what your plans are for the future.) He loaded my tray with all the things I like, and gave me a giant helping of pudding, and I went off to bed.

  ‘Comfy?’ asked Stella, tucking me in as if I
were a baby, and setting the tray across my knees.

  I nodded, tugging the sheet up over my nightie like a giant napkin.

  The door bell rang.

  ‘Wish me luck,’ she said. And I realized for the first time that she was nervous. She knew as well as I did that all Dad’s friends would be watching her closely, wondering if they would get to like her, trying to work out why Dad had left home for her, and if she’d be a wicked stepmother to me.

  I couldn’t wish her luck. How could I? If she was lucky, it made it harder for my dad ever to come back home. So I just pretended that I’d choked on a baby tomato, and couldn’t speak.

  She knew I was faking, but she didn’t push it.

  ‘Come down if you want anything,’ she told me. ‘Anything at all.’

  And off she went, like someone walking bravely to the scaffold.

  The bell rang again. And then again. And while I listened to Dad’s friends coming in, and following him to the kitchen for their drinks, and getting settled, I suddenly had an idea. I’d hide behind the giant fern on the landing, and eavesdrop through the meal. Then I’d hear everything. With four people sitting asking polite questions like: ‘What are your plans now?’ and ‘Will you be moving house?’ and ‘Are you hoping to marry?’ I’d find out everything I wanted to know, and hadn’t dared to ask. For weeks and weeks, I’d had the feeling things were just happening to me. Other people decided things, and made them happen, and I was part of them, but I wasn’t told anything about it till after. And I was sick of it. It seemed to me that if I could find out about everyone’s plans, I’d be a whole lot safer.

  I ate every single mouthful on my tray. Then I slipped out of bed, and took the green pyjamas out of the packet. Perfect. Absolutely perfect. The exact shade of green!

  And off I went, crawling so quietly that no one downstairs heard, along to the giant fern. And there I sat, listening to every word.

  And there were enough of them. Words, I mean. The meal went on and on. They talked about everything. Cars. Traffic. Weather. If it was boring, then they talked about it. But all the way through, nobody said a word about Mum, or Dad, or me, or Stella. I realized they were taking special care not to say anything that might lead to trouble. On it went. Boring, boring, boring. Insurance. House prices. Greek holidays. I almost would have fallen asleep.

  Except I noticed something. No one was talking to Stella. They weren’t turning their backs on her, exactly. But they weren’t talking to her. Like me, they talked to Dad, or to the air. The time went by, and no one spoke about the lovely food (in case they had to thank Stella). No one admired the beautiful table (in case Stella had set out all the sparkling things). Nobody asked about her job, or her family, or what she thought. They were, I realized, being as loyal to my mum as they could be. They wouldn’t, couldn’t, make friends with Stella.

  They just ignored her.

  They were just like me.

  And I couldn’t help it. I felt sorry for her. She’d worked so hard. I’d watched. She’d worked all day to make things nice for them. And they were treating her as if she were some kind of ghost. They smiled at her vaguely when they had to, and answered her questions politely, and passed her the butter.

  But, deep at heart, they were ignoring her.

  And it was rude. Plain rude. This may sound strange, but it was only sitting up there on the landing that I could see how very rude it was. And that it wasn’t even helping Mum. Mum wasn’t there to see it. And anyway, what had gone wrong was nothing to do with Mary and Barney. Or George. Or Linda. It was between my mum and dad. And treating Stella as if she were invisible was never going to solve it. Shreela and I didn’t blame Flora and Natasha when we split up. We just blamed one another. That was fair.

  And that was the moment when I made my huge decision. I came out from behind the fern, and stood in my pyjamas at the top of the stairs, where everyone could see me: a giant walking houseplant.

  Then I sailed down.

  ‘What ho!’ said Dad. ‘Come to say hello?’

  But I ignored him. I went up to Stella.

  She swivelled on her chair to face me.

  I looked her in the eye. I used her name.

  ‘Stella,’ I said. ‘These are the pyjamas you bought me. Aren’t they beautiful?’

  I swirled round, and made for the stairs again. On the bottom one, I stopped.

  ‘They’re brilliant,’ I told her. ‘Thank you.’

  I ran upstairs.

  I didn’t bother to eavesdrop more than a few minutes longer. I felt full of food, and sleepy, and somehow I’d stopped worrying quite so much about what people might say while I wasn’t listening. As Granny always says, I shouldn’t fret, everything will come out in the wash, and I can’t even remember what I was worrying about last year. I just stayed long enough to make sure everyone had got the point. And, sure enough, they had. Mary immediately turned to Stella and asked her where she’d found such lovely pyjamas. And George said it was terribly clever of Stella to get exactly the right size.

  It wasn’t much, maybe. But it was a start.

  And then, of course, they just got on to shops. Boring in spades. So I went off to bed. But in those last couple of minutes, Stella had rumbled where I was, and glanced up twice.

  And twice she winked at me.

  And I winked back.

  It wasn’t that much. But it was a start.

  Pixie was first to speak.

  ‘You should have brought them with you,’ she said. ‘The green pyjamas.’

  ‘I grew out of them,’ said Claudia. ‘I grew out of them at least a year ago.’

  ‘Your granny was quite wrong, then,’ Ralph couldn’t help pointing out. ‘You can remember what you were worrying about last year.’

  Claudia ignored him.

  ‘I cut them into little squares, and now they’re part of my new bed cover,’ she told Pixie. ‘Stella’s been teaching me how to quilt. She’s shown me lots of things. How to read maps and change electric plugs, and how to skate and –’

  Colin raised his head.

  ‘Where do you skate?’ he asked her.

  Claudia stared at him.

  ‘The same place as you.’

  Colin looked mystified.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I’ve seen you,’ said Claudia. ‘I see you there almost every time I go. But you skate earlier, because by the time I arrive, you’re always just sitting on one of the benches.’

  ‘Are you a good skater?’ Robbo asked Colin, curious.

  Colin went scarlet.

  ‘Not really,’ he mumbled.

  ‘You ought to be brilliant,’ said Claudia. ‘You’re always there. Can you do backward jumps?’

  ‘Not very well.’

  He was still looking horribly embarrassed.

  ‘Can you do butterfly halves?’ Ralph asked him suddenly, staring intently.

  Robbo leaned forward.

  ‘Ralph, there’s –’

  But Ralph cut him off.

  ‘Let Colin answer.’

  So Colin answered.

  ‘No. Not very well.’

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ said Robbo. ‘There’s no such thing.’

  Colin’s flush deepened, and he turned on Ralph.

  ‘That wasn’t very nice. Tricking me.’

  ‘What I don’t understand,’ said Ralph, ‘is why you bother to go to the rink all the time if you don’t even skate.’

  Pixie said merrily:

  ‘Is it a story? If it’s a story, then you have to tell.’

  ‘Yes,’ Claudia insisted. ‘I told my story. Now it’s time for yours.’

  ‘It isn’t a story,’ said Colin. But they were all sitting cross-legged on their beds, staring at him as if it were.

  So, cornered, he began to tell.

  COLIN’S STORY:

  The Bluebird of Happiness

  His face looked peakier than usual in the moonlight.

  ‘I never knew my real father,’ he told them.
‘Mum left him a few weeks after I was born. She says he was a bit of a rough-house and we were much safer away from him, so I’m not sorry about that.’

  He stretched out his fingers on the counterpane, where they gleamed palely like short little rivulets of spilled milk.

  ‘Then she took up with my dad. I call him that because he came when I was eight months old, and I don’t remember any time before that. He looks a bit like me, anyway. His hair is dark, like mine, though he has silver patches over his ears. He knows the words of practically every song you’ve ever heard, and he rolls his own cigarettes out of tobacco in a tin. And he can’t sit on a park bench without every dog in the world coming up to say hello to him. Sometimes they even try to follow him home.’

  He turned his thin face towards the flat silver light pouring through the turret window.

  ‘I call him Dad, but he has about a billion names for me. Col. Collie. Sonny-boy. Buster. Mr Bluebird –’

  ‘Why Mr Bluebird?’ Ralph asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Haven’t you ever asked him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Ssh!’ Claudia scolded Ralph. ‘My granny says “The child who is loved has many names.” Let Colin get on with his story.’

  ‘It isn’t a story,’ said Colin. ‘There isn’t anything to tell. We just went on. My mum worked in a shop, so it was Dad who walked me to school and back. He got my tea, and took me to the park. I used to swing as high as the bar, then lean over so far backwards that, when I swung down again, my hair brushed the woodchips, and all the clouds rolled underneath my feet.

  ‘ “Who do you think you are?” he used to tease me. “The Bluebird of Happiness?”

  ‘And then he’d roll one last cigarette, and we’d set off for home, shooing the dogs off behind us as we went.’

  Colin fell silent. Everyone gave him a moment, then Claudia said:

  ‘And then?’

  ‘And then,’ said Colin. ‘My mum and I did a flit.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A flit,’ said Colin. ‘We moved away.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know. She never really explained. If I went on at her, she’d talk about Dad never bothering to get a proper job, and there being more to life than sitting round singing, and smoking roll-ups. But that was only afterwards. She didn’t say a word before. She just waited for the one day a month when Dad used to go and spend the day with his sister, and then these two friends of hers came round with a van, and took almost all the furniture and all my clothes and toys, and we went off. I didn’t even realize Dad wasn’t coming with us. I saw Mum piling his clothes and tapes and stuff into the middle of one of the empty rooms, and still it never struck me. I was so sure he’d be along later that I picked up a tobacco tin that had rolled away into a corner and stuffed it in my pocket, and later, in the van, I asked my mum: